San Diego County drug and alcohol deaths in 2013

The San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office releases an annual report that summarizes death data. All deaths not due to natural causes are investigated. Using the resulting data from this and previous years, here is a look at unintentional deaths due to medications, alcohol and illicit drugs:

In 2013, the number of unintentional drug- and alcohol-related deaths continued to rise, to a record 541. It represents a 9 percent uptick over the previous year, and is the fastest rate of change since 2009.

Unintentional drug and alcohol related deaths

As a group, illicit drugs were involved in the greatest share of deaths, followed closely by prescription drugs. Alcohol ranks third, followed by over-the-counter medications.

Deaths related to drug group

Within each group, deaths related to the illicit drug methamphetamine saw a sharp increase in the past year. Alcohol contributed to the second-most deaths, but dropped slightly over the same period. Oxycodone, the most abused prescription drug contributing to death, has decreased in the past two years, but is still much higher than it was before 2007.

Death by drug type

Methamphetamine

Herion

Alcohol

Oxycodone

Males died from drugs and alcohol in a much greater proportion than females, almost 3-to-1.

Adults in their late 40s to early 50s were the largest group to overdose and die from drugs and alcohol.